Don't blame public education

By David C. Damm - Special to The Herald

I'll apologize in advance … because I'm about to complain and even blame. I know I shouldn't. I should be bigger than that, but I'm tired of being responsible for all that's wrong in this country.

I've got to start by telling you that I work in public education. Before public education, I spent 20 years in the U. S. Marine Corps, so I've been around the block a few times. What has gotten me going, at least today, is this: I just read an op-ed piece (“The New Untouchables”) by the business/management guru and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. Here we go again… his point: The failure of banks in this country can be tied to the failure of public education, and we can give the banks money but if we don't fix public education the same thing will happen again.

He goes on to write about how public schools don't graduate creative thinkers, thinkers who can compete in the global market. Wait a minute! From what I've read about how we got into this mess, there was some extremely creative financial thinking going on in the banks and on Wall Street. The problem wasn't a lack of creativity. Could it have been greed and short-sightedness? I don't think we teach those things in public education.

Let me slip even further back in time and complain a little more. I already told you I came out of the Marine Corps and into public education. I began as a transportation director and worked my way up through the ranks into a position of some authority in a few years. I started to attend those conferences that examine “What's Wrong with Public Education.” I remember well a conference in Spartanburg about the education and economic development Program — EEDA — which was sponsored by the S.C. Department of Education.

The keynote speaker was a business manager from a failed factory. He introduced the conference by telling the room full of educators how he started with 5,000 employees in his factory and, over the course of three years, was down to 1,500 workers and the factory had to shut down because it just couldn't compete. He, without apology, went on to suggest it was our fault. Yes, he couldn't compete because of the poorly prepared kids we were rolling out of our state high schools.

Two things immediately came to my mind. First, I couldn't imagine a Marine leader standing in front of a bunch of people telling them he failed in his mission and it was their fault; that concept was foreign to me. Second, I was astonished that no one in the room even raised an eyebrow.

I didn't know it at the time but educators have become so conditioned to hearing that they are responsible for everything that's gone wrong in our country, they have been so beaten down, that they just accept it and move on. It was all I could do to stay in my seat but I got a grip on myself.

A couple of years after this event, I was sitting in a meeting with business leaders in York County. Without much prodding, the discussion moved to how public school students weren't as capable as “our” generation. Today's new workers, because of the failure of public education, couldn't compete in the business world, they said. One of the loudest complainers was a guy who was talking about how kids today don't listen. They don't focus.They don't have good people skills … and right after he lodged a complaint about their use of cell phones on the job, his own cell phone went off.

He answered it in mid-sentence and then left the room. It was his grandchild. I think it's great he took the time to talk to his grandchild but I wondered if, when he was telling my former students who worked for him how important it is that they not use their cell phones at work, that he had done the same thing. This generation is smart; they can smell a hypocrite a mile away, and if you are supposed to lead them and you pull this kind of silliness, they will turn you off so fast your head will spin. Guess what? They are smarter than most of us, and we just don't know how to take advantage of it.

I wonder if this group of naysayers has read the article I did recently about the next “Greatest Generation” — a reference to Tom Brokaw's book about the World War II generation. This article plainly stated that our current in-school generation will accomplish things above and beyond the last “Greatest Generation.” Yes, the kids currently in our schools and those who have recently graduated from our schools. And yes, those same kids that the business world keeps telling us can't get the job done.

I've provided just a few examples of the frequent message we, as public educators, have had to endure regarding how we continue to fail society and the business world by producing this suspect product: Unprepared high school graduates. But, those same young people (or in some folks' minds, even the bottom half of the graduating class) often go in to the military, the same young guys and gals I proudly worked with in the Marine Corps. Without question, when asked, most people confidently state that today's U.S. military is the best trained, most-capable high-tech fighting force in the world. Explain to me how the military accomplishes this with our young people while the business world cannot?

I don't think we can lay this one in the lap of public education. Our students are extremely capable, smarter than most of their bosses. They just might have even loftier goals than making a couple of million dollars for some bank somewhere.

I know it's unattractive for me to fuss and blame, but I'm sick and tired of being among the fussed at and blamed. Nothing is that simple. Public education is just an easy target … and honestly, it's not the nature of compliant and caring educators to fight back. I've been down that road and decided it no longer works for me.